Beverage Manager Daniell Still stands at the bar of Hearth Tavern, 215 E. Water St., Sandusky, on Aug. 21. Heritage Ohio will present "Growing a Culinary Community," a day-long seminar about how communities can boost their independent restaurants, in Sandusky on Sept. 3.

A well-equipped restaurant — or a dozen of them — can be a key ingredient in the recipe for improving the local economy, according to a group of experts who will speak in northern Ohio next month.
Heritage Ohio will present “Growing a Culinary Community” on Sept. 3 at the Sandusky State Theatre, 107 Columbus Ave. The purpose of the day-long training session is clear.
“Increasingly, food is a vital component of a healthy and vibrant downtown,” an event summary by Heritage Ohio stated. “To be successful and continue to draw visitors, downtown must have multiple distinct dining options that offer quality healthy food and good service.”
As retail stores have dwindled in the downtown areas of Ohio’s cities, restaurants have moved into some urban areas to fill in the gap, said Jeff Siegler, director of revitalization for Heritage Ohio.
Right now, there is growing demand from consumers who want to try local restaurants and foods instead of national chain restaurants, Siegler said.
“The idea is to try to provide more information, more education on how to help grow the culinary in a community, realizing it’s become such a critical component of revitalization,” he said.
Dining out on Broadway
Lorain has plenty of good places to eat — just not many within a short stretch on Broadway, or within easy walking distance of the Black River or each other.
Mainstays include Bootlegger’s Den, Charleston Coffee House, Faroh’s Candies and Gifts, Scorchers and Club Copa on Broadway, and Golden Crown restaurant on Fourth Street. Further south on Broadway are Gyros and More, El Kefon Puertoriqueno, Mama J’s Homestyle Restaurant and Fligner’s Market, while K Cream Korner sits at Oberlin Avenue and West Erie Avenue.
On the east side of the Black River are Jackalope Lakeside, along with New York Restaurant and Grille, Mr. Hero and Subway sandwich shops, and Ardick Seafood Inc., Wendy’s, McDonalds and Off Shore Pub & Grub sit around the intersection of Colorado Avenue and Henderson Drive.
The restaurants sit within about a mile of each other.
For comparison, Main Street Amherst has 15 restaurants in its business directory, with 10 of them in a two-block area between Main and Spring streets.
Main Street Vermilion’s directory of downtown shopping and dining lists at least nine eateries, many within a block of each other, around the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Main Street. More restaurants also sit east of the Vermilion River.
Ohiocity.org lists at least 50 restaurants in the area of Lorain Avenue, West 25th Street and Fulton Road in that Cleveland neighborhood. Siegler conceded Ohio City had the West Side Market and Great Lakes Brewing Co. as great anchors to create a culinary community in that area, which now has become a fun destination for eating and shopping.
To the west, Sandusky Main Street Association lists at least 17 eateries clustered around Columbus Avenue, Market Street and Water Street.
The Sandusky model
In some ways, the areas of Sandusky that are not Cedar Point feel like a smaller version of Lorain, its coastal neighbor to the east.
Sandusky is losing population over time and is no stranger to urban crime, struggling schools, job losses and political disagreement. The city’s poverty rate is 23.7 percent, lower than Lorain’s rate of 29.2 percent, but higher than Elyria’s rate of 18.2 percent, according to figures from the Ohio Department of Development.
In the mid-2000s, City Manager Michael Will, Assistant City Manager Gary Packan and Sandusky Main Street Association Director John Lippus drafted legislation to create a downtown entertainment district in 2005. The city could get new economic development liquor permits and the officials made it known the liquor licenses would be for restaurant and food service enterprises, not just new bars, Lippus said.
“We created a destination,” he said. “It’s busy downtown now. The historic lack of traffic downtown in the evenings is gone. You’re definitely seeing a steady growth in evening traffic and evening patronage to the various restaurants.”
The idea was not universally popular, Lippus said, and critics argued Sandusky was not a big city like Cleveland or Columbus, that an entertainment district would not work because Sandusky is a small town that closes for the winter.
But it has attracted new restaurants to the city, starting with Chef Cesare Avallone, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who opened Zinc Brasserie in 2007 and Crush Wine Bar in 2010.
Avallone and his wife, Andrea, now have four year-round restaurants and a seasonal seaside snack stand.
The couple also are active in the Cleveland Independents restaurant group, and they are not alone in Sandusky. More chefs and property owners have joined to create more restaurants in renovated existing downtown buildings, Lippus said.
Concern about restaurants competing with each other partly is unwarranted, Siegler said. More restaurants mean more dining options for everyone, and more jobs, he said.
“We find that it really is helpful,” he said. “Ten restaurants do better than five restaurants.”
Robert Welcher, president of Restaurant Consultants Inc. based in Columbus, said he is not familiar with Broadway in Lorain, but generally a culinary community needs people living nearby to grow.
Sandusky has benefited from the Chesapeake Lofts condominium complex, where some of the units are rented out as upscale weekly lodging. Avallone noted his restaurants’ online reservation system logs diners from across northern Ohio and the Columbus area.
Siegler said he anticipates there will be discussion on how city government may be amenable to local restaurants.
In Sandusky, city workers have been responsive to restaurateurs seeking information. They also are willing to allow restaurants to have outdoor patios and bump out into public spaces, said Ex-Officio Mayor Dennis E. Murray Jr.
Public money also helps. In recent years the Sandusky City Commission approved revolving loan fund loans for Avallone, according to city records.
“I think the city has been both fortunate that we’ve had great entrepreneurs, but we’ve been accommodating,” Murray said.